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I forgot about the New Orleans breakfast classic... Lightly sweetened creole cream cheese with those warmed saltines. I also had forgotten about the tin. My mother had one, too. I wish I could find one. I will have to check e-bay.

Oven Fried Eggplant This is a recipe that my sister and I developed over the years. The original purpose was to get rid of all of those eggplants we grew. It has developed over time and this is the latest incarnation. The stuff is like potato chips and is guaranteed to dispose of excess eggplants. 1 Medium eggplant 1 Egg 1/4 c Cooking oil, olive or a neutral oil to your taste 2 c Or more, seasoned breadcrumbs Heat the oven to 375F. Peel and slice the eggplant in 1/4 inch or less slices. You can do full rounds or half rounds to your preference. Vigorously whisk together the egg and oil. You can multiply this as needed. Dip the eggplant slices in the egg/oil mixture and let drain. In a shallow bowl, bread the eggplant slices, pressing down to adhere as much breadcrumbs as possible. Lay out the eggplant slices on a sheet pan. (I have started using a sheet of the new non-stick foil on the sheet pan and we find that the crispness is enhanced.) Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, turn, bake for another 15 to 20 minutes. Serve hot. Notes: If the eggplant gets cold, it reheats beautifully, even the next day. I have used this same method with squash with good success. The breadcrumbs can be anything you wish. They should be well seasoned incuding salt. When I am lazy, I resort to Progresso. I am not sure what other vegetables this will translate to. I think the egg oil mixture is the key to success. Keywords: Appetizer, Side, Vegetarian, Easy, Vegetables ( RG1122 )

Oven Fried Eggplant This is a recipe that my sister and I developed over the years. The original purpose was to get rid of all of those eggplants we grew. It has developed over time and this is the latest incarnation. The stuff is like potato chips and is guaranteed to dispose of excess eggplants. 1 Medium eggplant 1 Egg 1/4 c Cooking oil, olive or a neutral oil to your taste 2 c Or more, seasoned breadcrumbs Heat the oven to 375F. Peel and slice the eggplant in 1/4 inch or less slices. You can do full rounds or half rounds to your preference. Vigorously whisk together the egg and oil. You can multiply this as needed. Dip the eggplant slices in the egg/oil mixture and let drain. In a shallow bowl, bread the eggplant slices, pressing down to adhere as much breadcrumbs as possible. Lay out the eggplant slices on a sheet pan. (I have started using a sheet of the new non-stick foil on the sheet pan and we find that the crispness is enhanced.) Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, turn, bake for another 15 to 20 minutes. Serve hot. Notes: If the eggplant gets cold, it reheats beautifully, even the next day. I have used this same method with squash with good success. The breadcrumbs can be anything you wish. They should be well seasoned incuding salt. When I am lazy, I resort to Progresso. I am not sure what other vegetables this will translate to. I think the egg oil mixture is the key to success. Keywords: Appetizer, Side, Vegetarian, Easy, Vegetables ( RG1122 )

I will add that she probably didn't have a clue as to the idiosyncratic addition of the Canary Islanders into the (then Mexican) nation that is part of the distinctiveness of the Tex-Mex cuisine. I have to say that this is one of the nuggets of information from Robb's book that made me slap my forehead and say "Why didn't I know that?" Yes, there is a North African influence in Tex-Mex.

There are some things for which there is no substitute. And... They have to be Nabisco, not low fat, salt or any other such nonsense. Nabisco Saltines are deeply etched into my psyche and part of the reason for my obsession with science. (But that is another very long story.) There are some recipes for which nothing else will do. Crumbled into the tomato soup made with milk is certainly one of them. To that I will add a very old family recipe for Pickled Shrimp. I have actually done side by side testing with various other frou-frou crackers and saltines win out every time. I think the same is true of ceviche, fish stews and chowders. Shrimp or crab cocktail is another one. My ex-MIL would warm the Saltines in the oven before serving them in a basket swathed with a linen towel, with soup or whatever. It was an elegant thing and very good.

That is about the funniest mental image I have had in a long time. What a memory. Richard... You don't hire turtles, you ride them! There is a picture of me somewhere, about age 3, riding one of the huge tortoises at the zoo. You might want to see if you can find the turtle soup recipe in a Brennan's book. The recipe itself probably won't help you much because it is somewhat kin to a Louisiana sauce piquant. However, I think I remember reading that they gave some instructions for how to cook the turtle meat. (I don't have the book. I read it at a friend's house.) That soup is one of my favorite foods in the whole world. The meat in there is never tough. That is why I was thinking of it for your purposes.

I have 3. Hidden Valley Ranch... It is a must have. I love Ranch dressing and this is the closest to what my mother used to make with the little foil packet, buttermilk, and Hellman's mayo (I think). Unfortunately, the bottle isn't quite the same and I haven't seen the little foil packs in a few years. Wishbone Italian... Another pantry staple as it is a key ingredient in a coleslaw recipe, a chicken marinade, and a couple of other recipes I haven't made in a while. Good Season's Italian is the substitute if I can find it. Some kind of Kraft vinagrette. Not very good. I have no idea where it came from. So, why don't I throw it out?

My read is that you should be thinking food. It was the food that was disrespected in the Kennedy book. I get that from the quote in the intro and some of her other writings over the years. It is all about the food.

Went to a Dairy Queen drive through for the first time in years last weekend. The lure was the MooLatte. I was the captive of my sister and friend. Since it was about 95 and 75% humidity, they insisted on a MooLatte, mocha flavored. Actually quite good. Loved the ice crystals and it sure did a good job of cooling us down. I actually think I froze my brain.

What I don't understand is how they can do all of the R&D, invest in the manufacturing process, all of the marketing hoopla, without establishing that it really works. The mind boggles.

A family story that still gets told... Dad was robbing the bees. We were inside the house capping the frames and I was turning the centrifuge. Mother and I both had our hands full when dad came to the door with about 50 pounds of "supers" (things the frames hang in). He is banging on the door to get someone to open it for him. Mother yells for my older sister and she doesn't come immediately. Dad is starting to turn the air blue. She finally wanders in with her face and hands dripping with honey. Dad explained to her, in terms that would not suit our gentle readers, why this was not a good time for a facial.

Yeah, yeah, yeah... But what will the food taste like?

When I was a kid, my dad kept bees as a hobby. We lived in a family "compound" on the bayou so there was plenty of woodsey and meadowy space for them to forage. (That was before Houston was a "big city".) It was fun to see how the honey changed with the seasons. I don't remember what the source was, if we ever knew, but we did get some that was really dark one time. It was wonderful and I still remember the taste. The house smelled like Pooh Bear's kitchen when we had the big pots going to melt and purify the beeswax "cappings". We sold the big disks of wax to some cosmetic company. My current favorite is a wildflower honey that comes from the Alvin TX area. Oddly enough, I found it at Kroger.

Hey... that looks doable. A little WiFi and there you are. You could even check that recipe in RecipeGullet to see how much yak butter you need. As much as I HATE, HATE, HATE the diy checkout, this actually could be fun.

I do this a lot. I will give you an example... My mother's cornbread dressing that was a requirement for Thanksgiving. She sometimes followed recipes but there were those things like the dressing, potato salad and such, that were done by experience and "eye". After she passed away, the grandkids insisted that the dressing should live on. Since I had helped her make it many times, I took on the task. The bread part was easy, two recipes of skillet corn bread and two cans of cheap biscuits (baked pretty brown). This gave me a base for the quantities. This was crumbled into the big bowl for addition of the other ingredients. Sauteed onion and celery: I remembered that the onion and celery was in about equal quantities. I sauteed a lot and started adding it to the bread in measured half cup increments until it "looked right", keeping notes as I went. (BTW... a digital voice recorder is really helpful.) Diced boiled eggs: I boiled a bunch and kept count until it "looked right". Chopped parsley: Same routine, added in 1/4 cup increments. Rich chicken stock: Sort of the same routine except that I had to describe the final texture because the bread will be quite variable... "add stock until the bread is fully saturated but there is not a pool of liquid in the bottom of the bowl, about x cups". Seasoning: Salt to taste is easy enough but I had to add the poultry seasoning in quarter teaspoon increments, tasting as I went, to get it right. You get the point... Then I put it in the pans and into the oven noting technique such as "don't pack it down". I kept notes on how long it took to cook, giving instructions like: "browned on top and springs back to the touch".

Given the discussion on this thread, would you be willing to speculate on what Tex-Mex will look like in 25 years?

To take this one step further... Aren't we starting to see some Central American influences creeping in? This is totally unscientific and certainly not exhaustively researched... but I have the impression that some Central American cuisine is getting more common in the past few years and it is being "Tex-Mex'd" as well. I suspect this is happening for the reasons you have stated above.

Oreos and beer. Pickled jalepenos stuffed with tuna and sharp cheddar.

Check out this thread. There is also a discussion in there about the conservation issues. It really isn't that good to eat. Like Robyn... I am really curious about where you bought it. I don't know that I have ever seen it in a commercial US market. The only time I have had it was at fishing tournaments at least 20 years ago before catch and release was derigeure. Then, at tournaments the only way they could make it palatable was brining and smoking.

But am I right in noticing that we have Tex-Mex'd those, too? Most commonly, those I see here use lettuce tomato and some sort of sauce or salsa. Those I have had in Baja used shredded cabbage, a creamy sauce maybe and were pretty simple. I really hadn't thought about it until I went to someplace here (Cabo's?) and the menu had a "Baja style" option with the cabbage.

Oh my... I happen to have a can of nacho cheese soup in my pantry.

In the interest of "roll your own", Robb has graciously contributed Larry's Cheese Enchiladas and the essential Chili Gravy to RecipeGullet.

For some really strange reason, being that close to the sliced strawberry gives me the creeps. Technically, the picture is well done. I don't "get" the black background, though. It is sort of like a creme brulee in orbit or something. "Creme brulee in spaaaace", with Miss Piggy in hot pursuit, pops into my head.

I spend time each year in that international hotbed of highbrowed hoohas, The Hague. I generally stay at the seaside resort area, Schevengingen. I know I saw three or more "Mexican" restaurants along the seaside promenade and another one or two along the tram route. I ate at one on the promenade and it is definitely Tex-Mex, or at least their version of it. I read the menus at a couple of the others and they were about the same. It wasn't too bad, if a little bland, and the cheese may have been Gouda, but it was a fairly decent attempt to make what was available into Tex-Mex. All of the places were doing a brisk business. Some of my fellow Texans that live there are amazed at how widespread it is in Europe.

Oooo... The sandwich idea is growing on me. I am thinking putting some shredded chicken and drained onions on a hollowed out French or Italian loaf, brushed with olive oil. Then do a pressed sandwich and slice it for serving. Maybe add some cheese? What kind? Provolone? I am now on the hunt for the smoked paprika.